Fast electro-optic switching in liquid crystal blue phase II

Electro-optic switching based on the Kerr effect was investigated in detail for liquid crystal blue phase II (BPII) with different chiral pitch. The Kerr constant of BPII was found to be proportional to the cube of the chiral pitch, although the theoretical expectation was the square of the chiral pitch. In addition, there was little hysteresis in the voltage-transmittance curve of BPII. The response of BPII was found to be very fast, at less than 1 ms, in both the regions of local director reorientation and electrostriction by applied electric field.